Description:

2011 Best of Austin Winner for Most Over the Top Beauty Treatment: Elluminize Mink Eyelash Extensions. Elluminize specialize in natural looking and luxurious eyelash extensions innately enhance your eyes. Our adhesive has superior flexibility and bond, made in the USA, water resistant and is able to tolerate Texas heat and humidity conditions with the utmost long lasting results. Elluminize client base is accustom to schedule their maintenance appointment every 5-8 weeks, the industry standard is 2-3 weeks. Choose between light weight silky synthetic, cruelty free mink eyelash extensions or you may blend synthetic and mink to increase volume depth, which results in instant glamour.

Beauty Week Menu:

30% off Eyelash Extension Services

Book an Appointment:
To book an Austin Beauty Week appointment with Elluminize eyelash extensions, please call 512-698-4686 and request the desired service being offered. You may also email info@elluminize.com to book an appointment.

Conditions:
New clients only.
By appointment only.

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The Sophisticate Synthetic and Genuine Cruelty-Free Mink Eyelash Extensions Blend
This application offers clients a bit more sophistication by blending 50/50 of our premium synthetic extensions and genuine mink lashes. Its great for client’s that naturally have thin and/or minimum lashes and who wishes to have full volume mascara eyelash extensions. Consists of 220+ premium synthetic and genuine mink blended.

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There are many benefits related to eyelash extensions. Providing eyelash shape of your choice to the existing lashes is the most prominent of all advantages. Due to this, the eyes appear to be more open and attractive, thus leading to a fresher and younger look of the person.

This is very useful for those who lack good looking eyelashes from birth due to hereditary reasons that can’t be changed easily. So, the extensions can bring attractive eyelashes, which, normally is very difficult to achieve when you don’t have them from birth.

Also, many modern women like to change their facial appearance with eyelashes different from what they already have. Eyelash extensions, coming in plethora of sizes and thicknesses enables numerous options for the people. Further still, the available variety of colors again are huge in number and can allow you to easily welcome novelty in your personality. Apart from the most common black, there are red, green, blue, and many more varieties of colours available for your use.

These new eyelashes are attached to the already existing ones using an adhesive and remain the same almost for 2 months. Life of the attachment and lashes may vary with the way one handles them. Longer duration of exposure to water or oil may reduce the lives of these lashes.

However, there also are many water resistant eyelashes, that remain indifferent on exposure to water. People can shower, swim and even sleep wearing these good quality lashes. Where they are more beneficial, they also come costlier than the simple ones. Cost also varies with the manufacturers of eyelashes.

Each one of these manufacturers uses different raw materials for the eyelash production. People have to choose their kind of eyelash manufacturers looking at it from every aspect. Nevertheless, they ought to always ensure that these extensions are approved by the FDA for medical and cosmetic use. New lashes are applied one by one to the already existing ones until the whole eye is covered.

Also, a person should make sure that he or she reaches out to a salon with a well-experienced personnel, specially trained in lash extensions. This is because of the fact that the process here is extremely tiring one to do and an inexperienced personnel might disturb even the existing charm of your face, which may probably never return. The people with experience know their job very well and so would be able to implement the process with perfection bringing out your actual beauty.

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American culture has long fetishized the eyelash. Designed by nature to be the simple shrubbery that protects the cornea from dust and small particles, the humble strip of cilia has evolved into an object of sensual fascination, aesthetic peacockery and, most recently, federal concern of such magnitude that the F.D.A. and a squadron of marshals were forced to intervene.

Since 1913, when a chemist named T. L. Williams mixed coal dust and Vaseline jelly for his sister Mabel — she was in love with a fellow named Chet, and Chet was apparently in love with someone else — women have relied on mascara to give their lashes the dewy luster of youth and the appearance of length.

In 1914, wily Mabel won her man, and Williams founded Maybelline, a company that has since nurtured our obsession with

lashes. After mascara came curlers and tinting, which the F.D.A. prohibited in 1938. Now a tonsorial industry hawks electric eyelash curlers, eyelash perm kits, eyelash transplant surgery, eyelash extensions and, perhaps the most controversial, eyelash conditioning serums containing an ingredient, found in an anti-glaucoma drug, that promises the growth of longer natural eyelashes.

I have always had stubby lashes, and I hate wearing mascara. In September, I ran into a famous fashion designer at the hair salon. She remarked on my haircut, I remarked on her silky Snuffleupagus-like lashes, and she whispered, “RevitaLash.” No mascara? Longer eyelashes?

It seemed too good to be true. But in recent years, several companies — such as PhotoMedex, Jan Marini Skin Research and Athena Cosmetics, which makes RevitaLash — have begun to market conditioners used to lengthen lashes. Some of the products contained small amounts of bimatoprost, an ingredient in the anti-glaucoma drug Lumigan, which is manufactured by Allergan. Apparently, bimatoprost stimulates lash growth; opthalmologists who prescribed it for glaucoma noticed that their patients began growing long, silky lashes. The Wall Street Journal reported that dermatologists are now prescribing it for their patients who do not have glaucoma but simply want longer lashes.

I was game. I ordered RevitaLash from a Web site, rather than be savaged by the saleswomen at Zitomer’s. Every time I walk in there, I am reminded of the advice my mother gave me years ago: if I should ever find myself in a bad neighborhood, alone, at night, walk straight ahead and do not talk to anyone.

A tube set me back $150, but I was willing, in the name of science (and, to be totally frank, to see if I could deduct the cost from my taxes), to be a guinea pig. In September, using a plastic metric ruler, I measured my longest pre-RevitaLash eyelash: 9 millimeters. Then I followed the instructions, applying a thin strip of the clear goo to the base of my upper lashes every night.

My eyelashes grew. And grew. After eight weeks, the longest one reached Betsy the Cow-like proportions, measuring 16 millimeters. The longest was so long that when I pressed it flat on my lid, it reached all the way to my eyebrow. My lashes were so long that when I slept with an eye mask — hello, fellow insomniacs! — my lashes matted into a spidery matrix over my lids. I woke up staring out of a gazebo.

But there is such a thing as too long. After weeks of experimentation, it dawned on me that extra-long lashes might be a sign of some physical distress, just as sick pines send out a flowering of cones. There was something slightly unnatural, almost unhealthy looking, about my “natural” lashes. It turns out there are many illnesses that cause lashes to grow. Trichomegaly — abnormal eyelash growth —is one possible manifestation of H.I.V.; it is also a symptom of certain forms of conjunctivitis, and it often occurs after interferon treatments.

Yet our mania for hyper-long fringe continues. Oprah gamely discusses her fake lashes on air. (Sometimes, each eye has two sets of falsies.) Last year, lash length became an issue of moral outrage when it was revealed that Penelope Cruz was wearing extensions in a L’Oréal mascara ad. Quel shock.

In November, just as I was wondering if having two-inch lashes waving in front of my eyeballs was a good thing, the F.D.A. ordered marshals to seize 12,682 tubes of the Jan Marini product Age Intervention Eyelash, calling it an “unapproved and misbranded drug” and warning that its use may cause blindness. Soon, Athena Cosmetics, the maker of RevitaLash — my drug of choice — issued a release touting its product’s safety and explaining why the competition was recalled. My favorite sentence read, “The F.D.A. merely said the product ‘may’ cause optic nerve damage, blindness, macular edema or uveitis.”

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PERHAPS all those ads featuring impossibly long lashes have ignited a multitude of inner Harlequin heroines. But women are seeking lashes that reach, curl and arabesque like the Sugarplum Fairy in “The Nutcracker,” especially to accessorize their romantic party dresses this holiday season.

GREAT LENGTHS A regular client at a salon that attaches eyelash extensions in Los Angeles.

Products claim to encourage eyelashes to grow, and mascaras promise to do all but walk a woman down the aisle. False eyelashes, too, have experienced a marked renaissance in the last several years, with Shu Uemura even adding a lash bar to its SoHo store in 2004 because of customer demand.

But for those looking for length and volume that last longer than the office holiday party — and without the mess that comes from glopping on mascara — there are now eyelash extensions, delicate silk-and-polyester lashes that mimic the natural lash. Sharp tweezers are used to dip a single lash into glue and then attach it near the root of an individual lash, on the upper eyelid only.

About 80 to 120 lashes are applied during a typical procedure, taking two hours. If it’s done well, it creates a full, flirtatious look. But extensions do have their risks.

“You’re getting very close to someone’s eyeball with pointed tweezers and very strong adhesive,” said Tim Dana, president of Lavish Lashes, one of the four largest eyelash extension companies. “You want someone who really knows what they’re doing.”

The first extensions can be traced to Southeast Asia. Jinny Coffey, a beauty therapist in London, began Jinnylash there more than five years ago, after taking synthetic lashes with her from her native South Korea. Their popularity grew and now salons across Britain offer them.

In the last year, salons in the United States have added the treatment, including at the John Barrett Salon at Bergdorf Goodman in New York City. Its managing director, Robin Benet, said more clients began requesting false eyelashes about two years ago, and the interest soon shifted to extensions. The salon now has an aesthetician trained by Lavish Lashes on staff.

Mr. Dana said the procedure has been available in the United States for more than six years, but initially the glue was so harsh and pungent that neither clients nor practitioners could stand the fumes. Even now, he said, practitioners want to know that he is offering the reformulated adhesive. “The first thing they ask at trade shows is ‘Can I sniff your glue?’ ” he said.

When he and his wife, Mary Jane, started Lavish Lashes, which is based in Riverside, Calif., almost two years ago, he said they realized the training was just as important as the product. “Just because someone is good at applying nail extensions doesn’t mean they’ll be good at this,” Mr. Dana said. So his company was the first to require training for those who buy it.

Most practitioners can only do two or three procedures a day, though Ms. Coffey said she has been doing it so long, she can do as many as eight. The life of a natural lash is about eight weeks before shedding, so new extensions need to be applied every three to six weeks to maintain the look.

This makes upkeep costly. The initial procedure runs anywhere from $300 to $500 and maintenance costs $50 to $150, depending on who does it and how many replacement lashes are required.

That is if it is done well. If not, the extensions can wreak havoc on lashes. The legends circulate: the woman who had her eyelids glued shut, the salon that used Krazy Glue when it was out of the proper glue, someone who had her eyelid glued to her eyeball, the editor who ended up with bald eyelids.

Yet many women who have suffered damage from extensions will not talk about it, said Mary Schook, a makeup artist who said she has been enlisted scores of times to undo the damage inflicted by other salons.

Ms. Schook started off applying extensions at Orlo, Orlando Pita’s salon in the meatpacking district, more than a year ago. As her client list grew, she moved to her own space in Midtown.

Ms. Schook said the procedure is still new and many factors go into a successful application. “If you feel them, there’s something wrong,” she said of the extensions.

Many neighborhood nail salons will apply extensions much more cheaply than the high-end full-service salons, at about $150. But experienced applicators said the glue is often of a cheaper quality, and that can cause irritation and clump when wet.

The neighborhood salons also claim they can do a full application in about an hour. Again, high-end practitioners said consumers should inquire about training. Often the practitioners have learned the procedure from a DVD ordered off the Internet (one East Side nail bar features the training video in its window).

Yet splurging at an upscale salon does not always guarantee success and safety. A 57-year-old woman who is a mortgage-business developer said she was in love with the lashes that were applied at a salon in Los Angeles — until they clumped together two weeks later, causing her great pain.

“Basically my eyelashes were mush,” said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous because she still goes to the salon to have her hair done. She made her way to Ms. Schook, who recommended she take biotin, a B-complex vitamin, and use Jan Marini Age Intervention Eyelash to help her lashes grow.

Elena Syrevitch, a hair colorist at Jeffrey Stein salon on the Upper West Side, said she had lash extensions applied at a salon in her Queens neighborhood, but when she tried to remove them two weeks later, many of her natural lashes also came off. “They look great at first, but it’s not worth it,” she said.

Dr. Cheryl Karcher, a New York dermatologist, said a number of her patients have had the procedure and report no problems. But, she said, “You have to be so careful washing your face, especially when a cleanser as gentle as Cetaphil can dissolve the glue.”

Better, she said, is to use false lashes, which are temporarily glued to the upper lid, “unless you have to look good every day for a month.”

But some women said they don’t feel properly dressed unless they have their extensions — even some who have suffered damage. “I told my daughter, even when I’m really old, this is what she has to give me,” said the mortgage business developer.

Lash extensions generally fall under the appearance-enhancement laws of New York State, which allow hair extensions but never address lash extensions. Lash tinting is illegal in New York because the dye “has been known to cause severe eye injuries or even blindness,” said Laurence Sombke, spokesman for the Department of State’s licensing division. Yet the glue for extensions is equally caustic.

Mr. Sombke said the lash practitioners would have to be licensed cosmetologists or aestheticians, but “we have no new regulations pending concerning eyelashes.”

Mr. Dana of Lavish Lashes said consumers should be vigilant.

“There are companies out there offering a home-use kit,” Mr. Dana said. “How can you put lashes on with your eyes closed? There are companies insisting the glue is safe, which makes even licensed practitioners get sloppy.” He recounted an instance in which an aesthetician forgot to tell the client to remove her contacts before the procedure. And he said he worries that, eventually, someone will suffer permanent vision impairment. “There haven’t been any lawsuits yet, but it can’t not happen,” he said.

Clients said they would welcome more monitoring of practitioners, especially if it means they can still get their long, full lashes. Meanwhile, Ms. Schook said, she just took on her first male client.

***Note from Elluminize- This Article is only giving rates for synthetic eyelash extensions and Faux Mink.